Dear Future President,

Imagine you’re a normal person, with a normal job. You most likely have a normal house and a family to provide for. You have a car, a normal routine, and a normal community. Everything in your life is going smoothly and peacefully until out of the blue, bombs start to drop.

Your neighbors have been murdered and you have to get out. You have to grab your family and escape, leaving everything you’ve ever owned behind. You travel for days, avoiding contact with others because you don’t know who to trust. You rest only when you have to. You need to make it to the next country over.

When you make it to the next country, you still have a long way to go. The government doesn’t accept you. They say you can stay one night in a shelter but then you must be moving on your way. The same happens in the next country, and the next. You’re uncertain, scared and desperate for a place to go. This is the case for many families forced to leave because of civil war destroying life as they know it.

The United States needs to allow more refugees in because it is our duty as human beings to care for each other. If there are families who need support, homes, and resources, it is our obligation, as people in this world to try our best to help them.

Some might say refugees should not be allowed into the United States because they could be terrorists. I understand people’s fears, but we must think realistically. If terrorists want to get into our country, they will get in, whether we help refugees or not. It doesn’t make sense to abandon thousands with no place to go, because we’re paranoid about a few.

According to the Refugee Council “51% of refugees are children. These young people have been forced to leave the only place they know as home. What will people of other countries think when the hear the great and powerful United States turned away millions of children with no other place to go? 86% of the world’s refugees are living in developing countries, while the United States has taken in only a small fraction of the people who need help.”

Think Process.org states that, “of the 784,000 refugees the United States has allowed in, only 3 have been been arrested on suspicions of terrorist activity. If you do the math, that’s 0.00000383% of the refugees who have been admitted into the U.S. doing something questionable.”

Right wing media such as Fox News make it seem as if anyone who wants can walk into our country and do what they like. Every refugee who is allowed to enter the United States must go through intense screening and interviews to be sure there is no danger of terrorism. “They’re checked against at least three departments of government databases: State Department, DHS, and the FBI,” says Kathleen Newland of the Migration

Policy Institute. “Refugees undergo the most intensive security screening process of any people allowed to enter the U.S. The average processing time is two years.” The people coming to our country, asking for aid and almost out of options are here because they need help and freedom. They want to start new lives in the United States so their children can grow up educated and as happy as possible. Research has shown that only .00000383% of refugees in the U.S. have thought about causing harm so far, and it would be surprising to see that number rise with the background checks and safety measures in place. There are nine steps to the screening process refugees must go through. It is unlikely In the end, these refugees are just people like you and me, hoping for a chance of survival and happiness, and why should we deny them that chance?

Sincerely, 

Hannah D.